In Flanders Fields the poppies blow ...

[SidDithers]

Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

Let us all remember that Nov 11 was originally called Armistace Day, to commemorate the ending of a terrible and useless war, not to celebrate the victory of one side over another.

Peace.

Sid

[AnneD]

1. Some of us

will never forget. All one has to do is see the rows and rows of crosses and stars to understand. It is a cold splash of reality on any dream of glory that one might have.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Wilfred Owen's reply

Smile, Smile, Smile

Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned
Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small)
And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.
Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned,
'For', said the paper, 'when this war is done (5)
The men's first instincts will be making homes.
Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,
It being certain war has but begun.
Peace would do wrong to our undying dead, –
The sons we offered might regret they died (10)
If we got nothing lasting in their stead.
We must be solidly indemnified.
Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,
We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
Would wrong our very selves if we forgot (15)
The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
Who kept this nation in integrity.'
Nation? – The half-limbed readers did not chafe
But smiled at one another curiously
Like secret men who know their secret safe. (20)
(This is the thing they know and never speak,
That England one by one had fled to France,
Not many elsewhere now, save under France.)
Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
And people in whose voice real feeling rings (25)
Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things.

[doni_georgia]

3. thanks for the reminder

I remember always wearing a paper poppy on Veterans Day. My grandfather was a vet of WWI and my grandmother was president of the local VFW's woman's auxilary.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land

Dreamers
(from Counter-Attack)

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.

Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dugouts, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain.
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.


"Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war.
It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain
some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it
are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said;
for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages."

Siegfried Sassoon

[Spazito]

5. Here is a video and song I listen to on November 11th...

It is called "A Pittance of Time", I cry every time I watch and listen. Please take the two minutes to remember.

http://www.terry-kelly.com/pittance.htm#

(just click on the video tab at the top)

[Mad_Dem_X]

14. Beautiful song and video

I think every right-winger should be required to view this. :cry: :patriot:

[demobrit]

6. Rupert Brooke , The Soldier

Rupert Brooke
The Soldier
IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven

It is still called Armistice day in Europe , there was a 2 minute silence in the U.K today 11am

[catnhatnh]

7. Poppy blows here too....

though not as bad as his son....

[hedgehog]

8. A fairly recent offering

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Words and Music: Eric Bogle.


Copyright: Larrikin Music, Sydney, Australia
Reproduced here by kind permission of the author.


When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in nineteen fifteen the country said, "Son,
It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done."
And they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun,
And they marched me away to the war.
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As our ship pulled away from the quay,
And amidst all the cheers, flag-waving and tears
We sailed off to Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water.
And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk he was waiting, he primed himself well,
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell,
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda,
As we stopped to bury our slain.
We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.

Now those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive,
But around me, the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead.
Never knew there was worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and free,
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more Waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind and insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve and to mourn and to pity.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway.
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory.
And the old men marched slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war,
And the young people ask,"What are they marching for?",
And I ask meself the same question.
But the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call.
But as year follows year, more old men disappear,
Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me ?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me ?

[Chorophyll]

11. The Pogues do a version of this

on "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash." It's appropriately dirge-like.

[Mendocino]

12. Another Eric Bogle Gem

Http://locksley.com/greatwar/gfof.htm

[Chorophyll]

9. The Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner

(A very short and stunning poem, I think.)

The Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

-Randall Jarrell

Thank you for starting this thread, Sid Dithers.

[cali]

10. kick, kick, kick

Owen, Sasoon and Brook on one thread. I love DUers. (sorry, I've never been a great fan of Flanders Field).

[kestrel91316]

13. Another tribute to WWI - Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

........just in case anybody out there still has a romantic, starry-eyed notion of the true costs of war.

[RedCloud]

15. Armistace, Labor and Saturnalia

How many more of our days shall be renamed or moved many months away or covered up to hide the truth?